Strange #120
Strange #120 sits at a structurally significant moment in Éditions Lug's long-running anthology: it falls at the very end of the editorial window (issues #94–120) during which the magazine ran a second Spider-Man episode per issue to close a years-long publication gap with Marvel's American output, a scheduling decision that shaped how an entire generation of French readers experienced Peter Parker's continuity. As the vehicle through which Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man, and a cast of dozens of Bronze Age Marvel characters first reached the French-speaking public, Strange was the single most important conduit for Marvel storytelling in France throughout the 1970s. Issue #120's dense roster of characters — from SHIELD agents and Hydra operatives to the core Iron Man supporting cast assembled by David Michelinie — reflects the anthology's ambition to deliver concurrent Bronze Age storylines to readers who had no other access to them. Arriving at the close of 1979, it captures Lug's anthology at a creative high water mark just before the franchise expansion of the early 1980s.
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Éditions Lug was founded in Lyon in 1950 by Marcel Navarro and Auguste Vistel, who chose the name from Lugdunum, the ancient Roman name for their city. The Strange magazine series launched in January 1970 after Lug's editor Claude Vistel negotiated Marvel reprint rights through Transworld Features, a licensing intermediary working on behalf of Stan Lee and Martin Goodman. Strange began as a small-format black-and-white bicolor publication and transitioned to full-color comics format after ten issues. The magazine operated under ongoing pressure from France's youth publications commission, which required Lug to censor artwork — removing sound effects, erasing bladed weapons, and cutting panels — a practice that occasionally disrupted serialized storylines but ultimately allowed Strange to outlast contemporary titles that were shut down for non-compliance.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published December 1979 by Éditions Lug (Lyon, France); 80 pages, full color, French-language reprint anthology.
- The Daredevil story in this issue is titled 'Holocauste au cœur d'Hydra!' — a Hydra-focused storyline featuring Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and the mutant telepath Mentallo (Marvin Flumm), the latter having originally debuted in Strange Tales #141 (Feb. 1966), created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
- Issue #120 marks the final issue of an editorial run (Strange #94–120) in which Lug published a second Spider-Man episode per issue to systematically close the publication gap between the French reprint schedule and Marvel's American release timeline — a strategy confirmed by the Wikipedia history of the magazine.
- The Iron Man episodes in this period of the run correspond to David Michelinie's tenure on the title and feature the supporting cast assembled during that era: Bethany Cabe, Bambi Arbogast, Jim Rhodes, and Pepper Hogan — characters central to Iron Man's Bronze Age identity.
- Spider-Man's supporting cast appearing in this issue — Betty Brant, Flash Thompson, J. Jonah Jameson, Joe Robertson, Ned Leeds, Liz Allen, Harry Osborn, and Aunt May — reflects Amazing Spider-Man episodes from the mid-to-late 1970s reprinted to serve Lug's catch-up schedule.
- Strange #120 was later collected in Lug Album N°40 (comprising issues #119–121), released in July 1980, as part of Lug's practice of binding three consecutive monthly issues into a hardcover-style collected volume.
- The magazine carried the subtitle 'Le Journal de Spider-Man' from issue #99 onward, reflecting Spider-Man's dominance as the publication's lead character after his introduction at issue #18.
- Lug subjected all reprinted artwork to editorial censorship mandated by France's youth publications commission, sometimes removing entire panels; this practice affected the Daredevil and other action-heavy strips throughout this period of the run.
Cast · 40 characters
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Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
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Peter and his friends are attending the wedding of Betty and Ned when the party is crashed by the villainous Mirage who plans on robbing the guests.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).